Was Abe Lincoln gay?

[JoFerret]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/laweekly/20041029/lo_laweekly/57979&e=4

....
Another Tripp rediscovery is a smutty, humorous poem written by Lincoln when he was a teenager — in which the future president describes a marriage between two boys! Here (with some of the spelling corrected for easier reading) is Lincoln’s gay-marriage poem:

I will tell you a Joke about Jewel and Mary

It is neither a Joke nor a Story

For Rubin and Charles has married two girls

But Billy has married a boy

The girlies he had tried on every Side

But none could he get to agree

All was in vain he went home again

And since that is married to Natty

So Billy and Natty agreed very well

And mama’s well pleased at the match

The egg it is laid but Natty’s afraid

The Shell is So Soft that it never will hatch

But Betsy she said you Cursed bald head

My Suitor you never Can be

Beside your low crotch proclaims you a botch

And that never Can serve for me


Tripp notes that the stanza beginning "The egg it is laid" suggests that "Abe was well aware of the term ‘jelly baby.’ Originally from Negro vernacular, the phrase soon came to be used by whites as well: slang denoting what uneducated folk imagined . . . as a ‘pregnancy’ from homosexual intercourse . . . As a poem, Lincoln’s rhyme of course is a mere trifle, except that it is perhaps the most explicit literary reference to actual homosexual relations in 19th-century America — more explicit certainly than anything Walt Whitman ever wrote about the ‘Love of comrades.’"

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[Bluebear]

1. Fascinating. And the fundies will start calling for burning $5 bills now.

nt

[madrchsod]

3. nice pic of bin boy

[madrchsod]

2. who gives a shit ,he`s dead

and buried and can`t answer to this idiots claim that he was gay.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

4. So the "Party of Lincoln" is just a bunch of homosexuals?

I knew it all along.

[not systems]

5. That is where "Log Cabin" Republican comes from...

Lincoln and his famous log cabin days.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. This has been asked for some time...

without any definitive proof. There are indications that Lincoln may at least have been bisexual; however, he also had romantic involvements with women (one of which apparently broke his heart) and paid for the services of prostitutes (from one of whom he contracted syphilis). There IS evidence of Lincoln having very close and perhaps romantic liasons with men early in his life, but given the OTHER evidence as to his sexuality, it's more likely that he was bisexual than gay. And, anyway, does it really matter?

[loudsue]

7. Oh for Chrissake! Who gives a damn????

Gay folks can run a country the same as anyone else = well or poorly!

:kick::kick::kick:

[jdonaldball]

8. NO! But he did have some bad habits. And here's a video to prove it!

Abe had some bad habits:
http://gallery.mondominishows.com/hard_drinkin_lincoln/play_episode2.html

[Fridays Child]

9. I would be more shocked if it were determined, somehow, that no American..

...president has been gay. And if Lincoln was among the gay presidents, all the better. The GOP would have to release him from service, wouldn't they?

[Carolab]

10. Okay, I am related to Lincoln

on my mother's side. My great-grandmother was a Tallman, descended from a Tallman marriage to Abe's aunt (his father's sister, Anne Lincoln). On my mother's side of my family, there have been several gay men. My brother is gay as are two male cousins. By the way, Bush is also related to Lincoln and is a distant cousin of mine, many times removed. However, my family is much more directly and closely descended from Lincoln than is Bush's. I believe Bush's connection is through his mother's family, the Walkers.

[anarchy1999]

11. Simply unbelievable and not worthy of a post. So sad.

With everything that is LBN, and with everyone working so hard to make sure the selection on Tuesday goes well, this is the best post you can come up with? I'm sorry, I just find it sad, beyond belief.

[anarchy1999]

12. Oh my God, it is Halloween and there was a rumor about trolls with

1,000's of post that would be coming out? Is this the first, or one of, have there been others, today?

[saracat]

13. Why must some people make everyone gay?

Enough already. Who cares?